I like to roll alternate characters to level, because I like leveling.

I especially like the lower levels where you don’t have all of the abilities for the class that you have chosen to roll. It makes it interesting! There’s nothing like trying to kill a mob by pressing a key bind that does not exist for the current character. Plus I like the whole Golden Aura you get when you Ding a new level!

This time, I attempted to put more effort in the character’s creation. That way, I will feel a little more connected to the character and want it to progress and become more powerful.

CHARACTER SELECTION

Alliance. I already have a Tauren one. (5 minutes)

RACE

Human. I haven’t had one of those in a while. (about 10 minutes including bathroom break )

GENDER

Male. (1 minute – didn’t want to be “that guy” ya know? )

CLASS

Paladin. (0 minutes – already wanted to roll one)

FACE, FACIAL HAIR, HAIR STYLE, HAIR COLOR, COMPLEXION . . .

Now this is gonna take some time!

Do I want the character to look like someone or like me?

Do I want gray hair so that he looks wise and battle worn or some other color?

Should he be clean shaven or have a mustache or even a beard?

Should he look angry, determined, clueless?

For some reason, the face option took longer to decide that the name! I mean I want him to look fierce, but I don’t want him to look like that all the time. (32 minutes)

NAME

I gave him my real life name. I may change it later. Who knows? (10 minutes)

(So long story short it took 58 minutes to create my new character! WoW!)

How much effort do you put into creating a new or alternate character?

I’ve read and watched some blogs today that talk about the downfall of World of Warcraft.

Yes, obviously I’m still in love with the game. So it is aging, (Eve Online is older) but maybe . . just maybe . .it’s ok?!

A lot of people (that have played WoW since Vanilla and Burning Crusade) have complained about the game and why they decided to quit WoW.

In a way, I can understand. If you play anything for YEARS and you don’t get the thrill from it anymore, quit! No one is forcing you to play or keep your subscription.

My thing is that all the negativity eventually affects the NEW players. You know, the people who are actually enjoying the newness of this OLD game. It’s bad enough trying to get to level cap without all the “veteran” know-it-all telling them about how terrible the game is compared to how it used to be. Endless blog post and video blogs about the decline of World of Warcraft.

And you know what?

GOOD RIDDANCE!

You played a game you once liked and you don’t anymore. Fine. Leave.

But keep the negativity to yourself and let the new players have the game! We are so sorry that your uber talents can’t be challenged anymore! But you don’t have to bash it as you leave or afterwards! You’re done now. You have your “life” that you’re not gonna waste time with anymore . . . go do it!

To me, its like bashing an ex-girlfriend you dated for a number of years and calling her a skank!

QUESTION(S):

1. Was she a skank when you met her?
2. If she became a skank as time went on, why didn’t you leave sooner?
3. At some point this skank was very attractive to be with, wasn’t it?
4. If you hated spending so much time with your skank, why not create some outside interest? The skank will always be there!
5. If she stopped being skanky, (new expansion) how long till you call her a skank again?
6. Can she ever re-kindle your fondness of her knowing her previous skankness?

If you were talking about a person, all this would seem harsh.

But WoW is a game with no feelings. As long as enough people enjoy playing it, the game will survive no matter how anyone verbally bashes it.

However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t go back and play at some point. I (and a lot of people won’t judge you)

What gets me is that people who say they hate WoW and quit it act like someone forced it into their veins. YOU as a player decided to play and yes…become addicted. It’s been years. You’ve built up a tolerance.

That’s not the games fault.

If someone plays WoW and decides it’s not for them (even after 5-6 years), just count it as one of life’s lessons. You liked it and now you don’t. And if it was so BAD…DON’T DO IT AGAIN.

But MAN UP and acknowledge that you create your own happiness or sadness and a game, Blizzard Entertainment, your internet provider, & God really OWES you nothing.

I was surprised to see how many people have videos that “prove” they quit World of Warcraft.

WHO CARES????

In a way I guess the creators of the game should be happy not only for the game’s success, but that it touched so many lives in so many ways.

Someone once told me that if something or someone didn’t matter it would not make you very happy or very upset. It just wouldn’t matter.

How World of Warcraft touched your life is how you interpret it.

Waste of time that could be used constructively elsewhere, or an enjoyable form of entertainment. (Which is Blizzards last name) 🙂

“The Ethereals, emerging from the nether, will bring with them a new technology they call Transmogrification. They’re heading to the capital cities of Azeroth to set up shop and to offer adventurers a unique service — copying the appearance of one magical item onto another. They only ask for a modest gold donation to recoup their costs.”

“Visiting a Transmogrifier will present players with a new interface that will allow them to change the appearance of an item while retaining its original stats. “

I like the idea of changing my armor to look like an armor set I previously loved but with the stats for the current level of gear I am wearing.

Putting the old stats and bonuses aside, I loved the color, the skulls and animation that this tier 3 set for Warriors had.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do any real Raiding until after the realsease of The Burning Crusade expansion. I wished I could form a raid with my alt and just solo what I needed, but alas, my Warrior, Zaren, would never have the honor of wearing the Dreadnaught Battlegear!

With the release of Wrath and Naxxramas moving to Northrend, a friend told me that there would be a Dreadnaught set available. I was estatic!! Zaren was at the appropriate level for the content and in a guild that was ready to run Nax! JOY!!!

Alas, it would not be the same. The Dreadnaught’ Battlegear had much better stats, but it’s animation and styling seemed watered down. (to me at least)

IN comes Transmogrification! Now I can make my current set look like Dreadnaught . . .

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

You have to HAVE in your possession the gear that you want your current gear to look like???? AAARRRGGHHH!

Anyway it probably will be a good option for a horder that has several sets of gear clogging up his/her bank. 🙂 I used to be that way too! All through Burning Crusade, and Wrath, I had several gear sets that I kept for sentimental reasons I guess. Besides, I spent WAY too much time and effort to get them, can’t cash them in, and did not plan to delete them.

Until Cataclysm came. New talent trees, new mechanics, new stat weights. . . seemed like I would never wear my old gear sets ever again. So I deleted them! 😦

Who knew Blizzard would come up with this idea AND JUST AFTER I deleted my old gear sets???

Blizzard used to cling to the silhouette theory that you can’t change the cosmetic look of your gear because you should be able to identify a character’s class and race by the silhouette of said player’s gear. Now they’ve thrown that out the window essentially!

Well, I guess I can craft an Imperial Plate Armor set, grab my Aegis of Stormwind Shield from my bank along with my Stormwind Tabard and walk around Stormwind pretending to be a Stormwind Troop. Could be interesting in a dungeon especially on the Horde side! 🙂

I personally would like an advanced version of Character Creation/Editing.

This way, I can customize my characters body features and dimensions.

And NO, I would not be the guy that would want the slide bar for “Chest” and then make all my female characters Double D Bimbos. . . hmmm . .

SHE IS NOT A BIMBO! I JUST REALLY LIKE GO DADDY!

🙂

I would also REALLY like to be able to change the color of my gear rather than make it look like an old gear set I used to have. And yes, I would make all my gear Black . . . cause it’s cool!

But I guess beggars can’t be choosers! And with Blizzard Entertainment I guess the formula for change is to complain about something for years and eventually you’ll sort of get what you want! 🙂

Putting the “addiction argument” asside, should little Billy play WoW?

World of Warcraft is rated “Teen,” but I think it should be rated:

“OIFYCKYMS” for “Only IF You Can Keep Your Mouth Shut!”

I can remember many times when I was in a pug and one (or more) of the group members go off on some childish tangent for the entire run about Chuck Norris or whatever.

Don’t get me wrong I like Walker Texas Ranger as much as anyone, but I don’t see why trade chat and general chat will have seemingly endless conversations about the man.

OR while grouped with some players, someone suddenly starts an argument by calling someone gay or making racial slurs. To me that’s the sign of immaturity. That and the constant jumping around all over the place (like a crackhead) while we get strategies together.

Also, I don’t say anything online that I wouldn’t say in person. That’s just me.

An immature individual uses the annonymity of the internet to berate and abuse other people. Or maybe it’s just an opportunity to say those curse words you’re not allowed to say. Can’t run outside and scream them at the top of you lungs?? Log into an MMO and sit in a capital city and scream to your heart’s content. That’ll show them!

And yes, I may be naive to believe that I should be able to play an online game without having to hear racial slurs and kids calling someone else a homo or whatever to feel better about themselves or convince themselves that maybe THEY are not gay.

What restrictions would I put in place? I guess it doesn’t matter what rating or restrictions you put on a game. The underaged will always find a way in. It’s just bad enough to have adult a$$hats than to have little 8 year old Billy pretending to be an adult one. I personally think that (During Lich King) when the novelty wore off with Death Knights, kids started playing thier parent’s DKs.

Makes sense, right? Level 55 character (that was overpowered) ready to go! Junior won’t have to spend time leveling and can join us after a short leveling run! Nice? NO!

Problem with that was he didn’t have to learn to play! He breezed thru level content until 70ish and bored and berated other players for not being as Uber as he/she. THEN when real skill was needed, most failed myserably! No, you can’t Tank and Heal yourself through the dungeon solo. Yes you do need other players and guess what? The other players are NOT NPC’s, so WATCH YOU MOUTH! Ahem . . . sorry!

I also don’t pay $15 to babysit.

FOR EXAMPLE: I was in a guild where the Guild Leader was a mom and let her 8 year old son play on one of her other accounts. It was fine for a bit until he tried to level up using dungeon content. Most of the guildies didn’t have low level toons to run with him, so we would end up killing everything and he’d just collect loot. (that was fine too) However, he would make constant request for help and grouping up. A lot of us guildies felt uneasy, cause he is the Guild Leaders son and you don’t want drama with the Guild Leader.

There was even an occasion when some of us were asked why we didn’t help her son out. The fact that some of us are casual and wanted to level our professions or just do a few dailies that her son couldn’t seemed to make no difference to her. I mean it’s one thing to help out now and then. Besides, when the Guild Leader was on, SHE was in a dungeon (suitable for her character) or doing what she wanted without the offspring.

Some people worry about the violence factor with games. Guess what? If you have to kill something, ya ain’t gonna do it with kindess. Violence is required.

What’s really issue the not being able to control Billy’s attitude. Giving him a venue that has no real consequence for his rudeness will not help you mold him into a civil useful member of society.

Billy wants to roll with the big dogs and throw insults around? Keep him offlline until he can get a job and buy his OWN copy of the game and pay montly subscription fees. This will give parents a wider window of opportunity to reign in little Billy’s attitude and social skills.

Not all kids are bad! I quested with a kid player for a while before I even got a clue he was a kid.

You Again??

My first clue was that he ALWAYS wanted to join my group even though I had outleved his current content. When I was five levels higher that he, he followed me out to an area that should have had him making corpse runs. However, Blizzard had made all the mobs neutral (used to be hostile) in this area, so there he was.

THEN, he wanted to attack a mob 2 levels higher than me! He said we could handle it. I told him “DON’T” but before I could type it he had pulled. We both died and he thought it was the coolest thing! Plus, he said “kid like stuff ” and when I asked him how old he was, he said 9! Needless to say, we didn’t group up much after that.

I guess I felt uneasy running with someone so young, but I could imagine his Mom asking who I was and how old I am. I don’t want to be painted as a creep, so I grouped with friends I know personally.

Yet another reason kids shouldn’t play a game adults play too. Wasn’t the kid’s fault. Just there is a potential for kids to meet the wrong type of people out there and I wouldn’t want my kid communitcating with some old guy for days online without my supervision.

I initially bought WoW to have fun and relax. Now it seems there are so many reasons to find some way to relax after playing the game.

After a long day at work, I sat down to my computer to relax. I loaded WoW and decided to give my Shaman, Dgilbert, some more attention. (her jewelcrafting will save me some gold down the line) She had recently dinged 68, so I got her cold weather flying ability from the trainer and rushed out to Northrend.

When the loading screen appeared, it hit me how there are so many things that new WoW players have missed out on.

My wife asked me if that was the Lich King that I used to talk about. I said, “Yes, and No.”

My wife has gotten snippets from me of the goings on of the game during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, (she’s now showing more interest in the game) but I found that just explaining the first picture was going to take a bit of time to explain. This would take away from my “relax time”, but I enjoy when she wants to know more about the game I love. As they say. A picture is worth a thousand words! 🙂

Of course we know that the first picture is the Great Tirion Fordring who took the Lich King crown after the defeat of Lich King Arthas. (There must always be a Lich King)

She asked why he looks like that. And I told her that he consumed and was changed by the fires from the Red Dragonflight used to cleanse the area of a plague unleashed by the forsaken. (Of course I explained the back story, but I’m not typing all that)

She apparently never saw or paid attention to this loading screen back when I played the Lich King expansion:

Go to Northrend and you won’t see this picture load again.

This guy was the reason I logged on for so many hours. To level my character to get a chance to fight this smug Son of A @#$%&*.

So I explained to her why there must be a Lich King and why the first loading screen is really a sad reminder of a time gone by rather than an inspiration for the gameplay that is about to happen.

But for a new player, this will be totally missed.

And maybe that’s why so many veteran WoW players get burned out and leave the game. You get ready to play and the loading screen shows you where you are about to enter the world then the memories of how difficult it used to be pop into your head. And even though you’re rolling and alternate character that is at the appropriate level for this content . . . it will NEVER be to same experience. All the wonder is gone, cause you learned to play several characters (hopefully) and know the basic mechanics. So basically the REAL challenge of learning on the fly is gone.

We all remember HATING to see the Deadmines loading screen, right? (or whatever your dreaded dungeon was) My experience as a tank was seeing that smug bastard then joining a group and seeing this loading screen:

As a Warrior Tank, I HATED THAT PLACE with a passion!!! I had difficulty with AOE threat and over zealous Dps! Ugh!

New players will not know that uneasiness, because it will just be another leveling zone. And even if they experience some sort of awe in the design and play of this zone, it will NEVER compare to what we experienced when the zone was relevent.

Personally, I love World of Warcraft. I hope it never ends! While I guess I will eventually find no challenge in the game in the future, but I can see myself logging on and exploring and rolling class and race combinations that I haven’t fully explored yet.

Well, enough with the buzz kill . . . . time to attack Northrend from the other side of the continent this time! Weeeeeeee!

We were escorting young Thrall out of Durnholde when we mounted up and without provocation the rogue of our 5 – man group types, “Big Woop! You have a lion with Fire on its head!”

I admit, I’ve been riding around on my Winged Guardian since I got it. It’s hot buttoned for when I want to mount up right away. I needed a mount, that’s the one I have!

I did not know that the Winged Guardian was such an offense to some players. Yeah, I bought it, just like my sparkly pony. So What? At first, I thought he was joking, but he kept going ON about it! Sheeeze!

I have mounts that I’ve grinded HOURS of rep for only to see newer players spend less time acquiring the same thing. Do see me QQing about that!

Back in the day, I really enjoyed having a rare mount that people would ask me how to get and secretly be happy that they thought it was too much trouble to try to get the same mount. See.. that way, it would STAY RARE.

I have since given up on such pursuits. Now if I obtain a mount, it’s because I like it and want it. So be it!

Don’t hate because I bought a flying mount that doesn’t give me ANY advantage over another player. (at my level)

Don’t hate cause I can spend $25 when I want to. I’ve worked hard for years and save for stuff just like that. Stuff I want, so…

If your parents don’t want to buy you a flaming flying lion, get a paper route.

If you really want a flaming flying lion, save for it.

If you think playing alongside another player that has a flaming flying lion is too much to bear, leave group!

If my flaming flying lion’s burning mane is too much for you, save the Michael Jackson joke. Keep it to yourself and put on some sunglasses. Or see previous suggestion.

I don’t hate on someone who has some special pixels that I don’t have. I admire them and say “nice mount” or “nice (insert item).”